Breaking down Race for Kids Ages 9-11

Teacher Jizelle's Presentation:

Teacher's Guide to Breaking down race For 9-11 Year olds

What it is, how we view it, its history and its future

Purpose

At these ages, kids are already noticing differences in people but they don't know the right words when it comes to race. This interactive guide will hopefully educate young minds and make them more compassionate towards their peers and knowledgable about the outside world. I have decided to spread this into a multi-part lesson plan, so each concept can have more time to be explained to the students. They will be taught the information and see how it is actualized in their own world. They will be able to see themselves in what they're learning and hearing about when it comes to racialization/ideas of race.

Part One

What is race?

DefinitionS- Race and racism

Race: How the world chooses to label us and others based on physical traits

Racism: Treating people unfairly based on what label we give them as their "race"

QUESTIONS?

ACtivity

You will need a pencil or pen and a blank piece of paper.

Write down physical traits

I want you to write down anything you see about yoursleves on a blank piece of paper.

Student Responses

Ex: Student 3

Ex: Student 2

Ex: Student 1

Ex: Student 6

Ex: Student 5

Ex; Student 4

Talk and share

We will talk as a group and then as partners

Group Discussion

1. Do you feel the same or different from your classmates? 2. Do you think it’s good or bad to label people based on these differences that you are noticing about yourselves? Why so?

Parter talk

Please turn to a partner and tell them something that you like about their personality or what they do in class! Don't focus on any physical traits!

Important points

• Our country recognizes these as "races":
• White
• Black/African American
• American Indian and Alaska Native
• Asian
• Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
• Two or More Races

How Race Affects Dallas

Our neighborhoods, who inhabits different parts of Dallas and how we see race in our community

Dallas is usually broken up into 4 main areas: 1. North 2. East 3. West 4. South

In this map, we can see how those 4 general areas are divided and make up unique communities. I used to live in the Oak Cliff, and now live in West Dallas.

02:00

1. In your neigborhood, what kinds of people live around you? 2. How would you describe your area? Is it clean, messy, nice-looking etc? 3. What types of stores or places are nearby to shop at?

General Demographics:

West Dallas (75212) predominantly has Latino and Black residents 66% are Latino 26% are Black

Picture of Latino family in West Dallas

How West Dallas is Right Now

Gentrification: when a neighborhood/area starts going through changes because of new people coming in and building new things

How West Dallas Came to Be

1900s

1920s

Mexicans in the Mexican American War fled to this land and call it "Cement City"

Poor families are sent to this area since the city didn't want them in popular parts of Dallas

1954

The City of Dallas finally recognizes West Dallas as a part of the city

1955

Segregated housing was created for black and white people and Mexican-Americans. These houses had environmental and health risks for people that lived there

Compare and Contrast Activity

We're going to look at two different school districts: Dallas Independent School District (DISD) and Highland Park Independent School District (HISD)

There are links on each picture that show more statistics about the area and school(s) performances

Highland Park (HISD)

90% of Highland Park is White

Bradford Elementary School- Highland Park

West Dallas Schools (DISD)

Uplift Heights Secondary (Middle & HS)

Uplift Heights Primary (Elementary)

Discussion

• What differences are you noticing in the rankings of these four schools in these different disctricts/areas?
• How do you think West Dallas' history has affected the area today?
• Do you think these differences in schools is fair? Why or why not?
• What are some thoughts you have about this information?

Part Two

Breakdown of SOME General history

Facts, ideas and questions to answer!

IMPORTANT POINTS

Colonizers: People from other countries that settle on land to gain power over the resources and lead it Colonial: it relates to being a part of a colony (like a community/group)

QUestion

Do you know what race you would be considered? Have your parents taught you what race you are?

MATCH GAME

Science became important to people's way of thinking

16th Century

Racist laws (rules) were made

17th Century

Race was first documented

18th-19th Century

Black and Native people were forced to be slaves

Small Timeline

17th Century

16th Century

17th Century

18th-19th Century

Now?

Cultural and ethnic differences are being celebrated more now than just "race"

Black and Native people were forced to be slaves

Laws were made that affected people in "non-white" categories

Era of Science and Politics became important- "The Enlightenment"

"Race" started being used; was used for family

Different cultural groups within what we now call "white" were actually some of the first slaves. Even though their race is seen as white, they were mistreated

People with power during the 17th century (also known as colonizers) wanted to prove that race had to do with science-- That we had physical traits that determined our racial label

People (that we would consider white today) had to be servants in order to pay off things they owed. The term "slave" changed to mean that the person was owned by someone else and started applying to "non-white" people

People considered to be of different races could not get married and would be punished, free white people were seen as real citizens of the country, children of enslaved people would get the staus of being enslaved

Hispanic/Latino/Latina is recognized as an Ethnicity, which is just a group/community that you share a culture with. I consider myself Latina! It's not my RACE though.

Interactive question

1. Does anyone have any questions about the information we learned? 2. Is there anything you want me to explain again? 3. What wonderings do you have? 4. How do you feel after learning this?

Part Three

race and ideas now

Necessary vocab

Breakdown of two Prefixes (something that comes before a word to change its meaning) Post: "after" De: "away from"

Examples:

Prefix Word Root New Word

How we deal with the aftermath of racial ideas

Postcolonial: adapting to new ways to label and see ourselves based on the ideas of race that are in place Decolonial: moving away from the ideas of race that have been put in place

Gloria anzaldua

She is a famous Texan Mexican-American author (like me) that wrote about postcolonial ideas Created new terms for Latinos and recognized that we have different cultures within us.

waziyatawin

She is a Dakota (Native American) writer that focuses on decolonial thinking. Believes that Native American people (like Dakota people) should create active change and not see themselves the way colonizers see them

LAST QUESTIONS

What is one thing from this lesson you can teach a family member or an adult in your life?

What can you do to make someone different from you feel good about themselves?

"I have brown hair and brown eyes and my skin color is light"

CONCLUSIONS

• My little sister understood race and used the word "kinds" when sharing her own understanding
• She lost some interest after postcolonial and decolonial but she did share a definition that I thought was interesting for decolonial
• "When you don't change anything about yourself"
• It was interesting to see how she translated the information in her own words, understood it for the most part
• She got the interactive question right and engaged in the matching activity

CHANGES

After presenting the lesson to her, I think it would be smarter to bump up the age range to 9-11 year olds (so from 3rd to 5th grade). I feel like it is more aligned to the material and concepts that they start learning around this time. I still worded everything in a way that an elementary student would grasp but I think older kids would have a better attention span for the whole lesson!

Does anyone know who this man is?

Hint: we get a day off from school in October because of him. Even though we celebrate him, he did a lot of bad things to the people that were already in America. The holiday is now starting to be referred to as Indigenous Peoples' Day!